


Monochrome (is no way to live)

by Aston (AstonT)



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Colors, Fluff, Gen or Pre-Slash, If you only read one work by me, Insecurity, this should probably be it.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 11:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8400109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstonT/pseuds/Aston
Summary: Tyler's life was void of color for so long that he was shocked to find someone who could make him see the good in the colors he'd often found himself disliking or writing off.





	

Tyler had always hated the color red.

He wasn't entirely sure why it was red that had been singled out for him to hate as a child, but it was.

Then, when his anxiety got bad and Blurry first showed up, he had a reason to hate red.

Because Blurry was red. Red eyes, dark shadows consuming his hands and neck, an unpleasant smile showing when he first appeared in the messy depths of Tyler's mind at the age of twelve.

He continued to hate red all throughout that school year, though he never told anyone about Blurry or why he hated the color red.

By the time Tyler reached his freshman year of high school, red had begun to represent the pain that Blurry had him cause.

And then, going into his Maths class first thing his first day of freshman year, he was sat next to someone who's hair was a violent shade of red.

Tyler couldn't help but stare at it in surprise.

He spent a week's worth of free time getting to know the boy with the dyed red hair - Josh.

And once he had, he decided red wasn't so bad.

Red didn't represent pain anymore. It represented a rawness that Tyler could use in his music, that he saw Josh use in his drums when he started playing one day on the desk.

Red became Tyler's whole life for a good two weeks after that, and Blurry gained a red beanie as well, as Tyler started wearing one near constantly.

* * *

The next color that came up was blue - a shocking, bright blue. 

Tyler had always associated the color with his wanderlust when his anxiety was bad - another tie to Blurry and the harm he caused. So blue wasn't as bad, but it was still one of those that Tyler found himself uncertain about.

And so, close to Halloween, when Josh showed up with bright blue hair, Tyler blinked in surprise.

"What happened to the red?" he found himself asking without much thought. "The blue looks nice, but..."

Josh gave him a wild grin in response. "I thought it was time for a change," he admitted.

Tyler nodded and smiled in response.

When, the Saturday following the change, the two found themselves sitting out on the roof of an abandoned building at the edge of town watching the sun disappear in a mess of colors, Tyler finally found a new meaning for blue, that bright, vibrant blue that he saw on a nice day when he needed out.

It was the calmness he felt inside himself when he was with Josh, just talking about whatever came to mind.

It was the wonderful feeling of having a someone who cared besides his family.

Tyler's room gained another color the next day when he took a blue sharpie to the paper he pinned up, writing down lyrics off the top of his head.

These were more hope filled than the red ones.

Tyler's mom found herself smiling when she made sure Tyler was awake Monday morning.

* * *

After Christmas, another change happened. 

Green.

Tyler had never given much thought to the color, always writing it off as bland, ordinary and lifeless despite it being most vibrant when everything was alive.

But Josh came into school with green hair following Christmas holidays, and Tyler almost died of laughter at the irony of the fact that the drummer was rewriting his entire life in colors.

By the time the green had faded out to leave blond behind, Tyler had found a new appreciation in the color. It was no longer such a lifeless color.

It was what it was always meant to be - new beginnings.

And surprisingly enough, it came to represent creativity in Tyler's mind.

Blurry hated it with a passion, because it made Tyler _happy._

But some of Tyler's happier lyrics joined the mess of colorful writing pinned on his walls in a bright green marker.

* * *

Next was purple. 

Like red, Tyler wasn't fond of the color simply because it was the color under his eyes when Blurry kept him awake for weeks on end.

It held too much sorrow for Tyler to like it.

But at the beginning of spring, Josh came in with purple in his hair and Tyler only raised an eyebrow at the new color before he carried on with what he was saying.

This one took more work to fix, Tyler noticed.

Josh was blond again before it happened.

It changed slowly, evolving over nights of talking on the phone with Josh when Blurry got bad, of sneaking out to see the drummer and just walking around town in the middle of the night.

And slowly, the purple's bad meaning faded to a dull thing, overshadowed by the comforting feeling of having someone understand he _wasn't as fine as he seemed._

It still represented his fear and sleepless nights, but it also represented the fact that he wasn't alone in his wars anymore.

Purple became the color of the lines Tyler randomly wrote and pinned up when he couldn't sleep and didn't want to bother Josh.

* * *

Summer brought pink with it. 

Tyler liked pink. It was a happy color.

With pink came the Taco Bell "dates", the sharing of music Tyler had never let anyone see or hear before.

Pink was when Josh found out about Blurry for the first time at sunset sitting on a bridge leading out of town, and only reacted to hold Tyler when he broke down in relief that Josh didn't hate him.

It was Josh teaching him it was okay to not be fine sometimes, and that he didn't have to keep himself hidden away, that he was worth it.

With pink came the quote Stay Alive joining his walls.

* * *

When Josh settled to a natural black-brown for the next school year, Tyler was surprised, but still smiled. 

With that came Josh finally seeing the colors meanings to Tyler.

It taught him how much he'd changed Tyler's life in just a short year and it left both boys with a warm feeling as they stayed out all night on Halloween night, just sitting on a ledge of the bridge, watching headlights go by like ants below them and watching stars and the sun go down.

And it brought the first full song Tyler shared with Josh.

It held stories from both boys, and it was when Tyler finally let his insecurities about everything be known to Josh - all the times he'd wished to die, or to be heard and listened to about something instead of blocked out, all the sorrow the boy had held his entire life.

And as the sun rose on the horizon, Josh gave Tyler the final quote he'd needed to finally settle into routine in his life. "We'll try again, then,"


End file.
